Quixotic Fanfiction: Cervantes, Don Quixote, and Their Afterlives

Catalog description

Don Quixote is often considered the first modern novel. However, few critics have paid attention to the fan phenomenon that Don Quixote generated after its first publication in 1605: the adventures of Quixote and Sancho were quickly forged, adapted, imitated, modified, and appropriated by authors from all over Europe. The quixotic fever has continued up to the present, and even Disney has announced its own adaptation of Don Quixote. The purpose of this seminar is twofold: on the one hand, we will read the original novel in its historical context; on the other, we will examine quixotic fanfictions, reboots, and crossovers by writers, graphic novel artists, filmmakers, musicians, playwrights, and painters such as Gustave Doré, Salvador Dalí, Kathy Acker, Salman Rushdie, Jorge Luis Borges, and Terry Gilliam, among others. As part of this course, we will make a class trip to the Hispanic Society of America, where the first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha and most of its first translations are preserved.